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First – Sorry I have to postpone “Ruby Tuesday” I had planned to go over there today and fine tune a story etc but a friend, Jeff rang and asked if I could help paint his house – in exchange for a load of firewood!!  Yeah! Count me in!

For someone that enjoys looking for ways to reduce spending & be economical, swapping some manual labour for firewood is a no-brainer to me!

Our friends bought a little investment house – a fixer-upperer in a great area – and are getting things sorted out for the keen tenants that are waiting to move in.

(Note *Friends* Actually family, but down here in Tasmania that could get complicated. Jeff’s Nan is my mothers second cousin. If you want to work out the nitty gritty cousin titles feel free, but it hurts my brain. 🙂 I label everyone ‘cousin’ or ‘friend’ and move on! 😀 )

Mana hasn’t done house painting before, so I dragged the poor girl out of the garden and gave her a paintbrush! (nothing like offering our international guests some variety hey?)

We started easy on the doors and then moved onto skirting boards and doorframes

Had to paint a few areas that already had the new carpet down!! Scared much???

Thankfully no mishaps and we pretty much got done what Jeff needed to have finished today.

So one day of painting will give us a good number of warm nights by the fire for free! Yay!

Not to mention a couple of days of getting very warm stacking the wood up!

I am totally off to bed – Just a couple of photos of the clouds this afternoon to leave you with… they looked a bit splendid this afternoon!

Cheers all

As promised – we had raspberry ice-cream for breakfast. (and Emma followed it up with pizza – well, its not a proper holiday until you have had pizza and ice-cream for breakfast is it?)

And I can happily report that the ice-cream tasted amazing!

Today we got a LOT of rain. And its about time too! The recent grey days have hardly yielded a drop, so the garden must have enjoyed itself!

With the help of my lovely niece Emma and her fancy phone, we created a video to show those who were interested in learning how to fold those origami seed packets, seen in an earlier post.

However… seems there are limits to what I can upload here and my video was about 200 gig oversized! Oopsie.

Damn.

So… I opened a facebook page for “Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt” as the easiest way to share it that I could think of right now (not being the most tech-savvy person I am at the bottom end of the learning curve with this blogging 🙂 )

You can take a peek here . (I’ll figure out what else to do on the facebook page as I go along!) 😀

So…(again) as a preliminary instruction, grab your square piece of paper, turn to the blank side and mark out each third of the paper – for most standard origami papers that means every 5cm

You don’t need to draw each fold like I did in the video. That was just so you could see more clearly where the folds were to go.

Then watch video.

I apologise to those who don’t use facebook. When I have more time and get more savvy, I will work out a different plan of attack!

And if all else fails – stop-motion-photography! (What else am I going to do with those upcoming long winter days huh?)

I also had to finish off and wrap a few presents that we are sending back with Emma for various birthdays that have come and gone. Yes – on one hand its the cheapskates way of moving things about… but on the other hand I know they will get there. I have had a couple of postal hiccoughs recently – one parcel is currently lost between here and Canada – so at least I know this little lot will have a good chance of making it.

A friend of mine makes these amazingly cute little bags and sells them at the market for a crazy $5 each! Makes the perfect ‘wrapping’

I actually suck at wrapping. I am not neat and my only saving grace in the above photo is how pretty the origami paper is that I used!

The Japanese have got wrapping down to a fine art. In fact, there are lots of people in Japan, whose sole job is wrapping presents at department shops! Their presentation is superb, and even when you buy a box of bakery biscuits or cake its wrapped with tender loving care with all the trimmings – here in Oz, you’re lucky if someone shoves it in a bag for you!

And this is how you wrap sweets –

Beats plastic hands down any day!

Well, that’s all from me today! I will leave you with a few sunset photos I took a couple of hours ago – again after the rain, the sky and clouds were beautiful. (So far the across the road farmer hasn’t noticed me using his fencepost as position of choice for my photography!)

Cheers!

Hello,

It was a really lazy, low key day today.

I think everyone (me) was getting over the shock of the 6am start yesterday. I can’t tell you when everyone actually got up or moved out of their pjs into proper clothes… way too embarrassing 🙂

Jeff is on a nightshift, but before he went back to bed today he put the fire on for us and we totally enjoyed the cosiness, since the day was dark, gloomy and cool.

I enjoyed mucking about with photos, trying some different post processing on images, while Emma and Mana abandoned their modern technology to play a drawing game! (Wow huh?)

My very clever and artistic friend, Samantha, developed this great little drawing game. Rather than encouraging competition, it encourages imagination and creativity.

Four rolls of the dice will give the budding artist a set of directions to go ahead and draw. Among the thousands of possibilities, you may end up drawing “A fat grey mouse, making pancakes” a “Determined sky-blue sheep flying a spaceship” or a “Hairy violet spider wearing cowboy boots”

It totally solves that “Mummy – what should I draw nowww?” question!

You can buy the drawing game via Samantha’s Etsy Shop or check out Sam’s instagram  – Samitomato  (I am sure I will get instagram soon – when I figure out how to drive it via PC)

Since I can’t even draw convincing stick figures, I stuck to the computer and played about a little with some past photos:

Time to hit the hay.

Cheers

Oh I could have rolled over and gone straight back to sleep when the alarm went off.  I had to seriously guilt myself into crawling out from under the warm doona and get my butt in the car!

The car was pretty much packed the night before and Jeff came with me to get a spot and unload it before returning home to collect the girls.

I got a bit of a weird spot – I got moved from the one I thought I was getting. I really need to remember to call the council and book a spot if I intend on going. (It also means I don’t need to be there quite so early)

Weather wise it actually turned out great again! Warm, mostly sunny and most importantly – no wind!

It got to about 18C (64F) today – but its cooled right off tonight. Right now its 6C (42F). We totally have the fire going tonight.

People were in a good mood today and the atmosphere was really friendly. Lots of people stopped to chat & so many people brought their dogs along for a walk – this thrilled the girls no end as they had to meet and pat each one (if their owners said it was ok of course)

Someone had bunnies for sale! They were really cute. Of course Emma totally wanted one. I figured it wasn’t the kind of souvenir that I should send her home with. (My sister would have had a lot to say I am sure! haha)

I did end up selling quite a good lot of stuff today. The tomato relish sold less than usual, but I sold out of the beetroot chutney and the sweet chilli sauce. Emma totally charmed a customer into buying the last sweet chilli sauce bottle in a performance that was actually stage-worthy! 😀

The raspberry jam was a really steady seller today! Glad I made a couple of new batches!

I sold a few packs of seeds…

We managed to clear a tray of seedlings… hmmmm… now to keep them alive and unchewed until the next market!

I also brought along my new Swear Jar. Sadly I gained no coin for it this time, but I am going to work on that. To be honest I think I may owe it a few dollars already.  I got my ‘Swear Jar Sticker Pack’ in the mail last week and Emma tarted up a nice big jar (optimism) to make it look pretty.

Its all part of the Love Your Sister fund raising campaigns for breast cancer research. One of Australia’s fabulous actors, Samuel Johnson, rode his unicycle around Australia to raise funds, awareness and set a new world record for the most kms ridden as his lovely sister, Connie, tragically has terminal breast cancer.  He managed to travel 15,955 kilometres over 364 days and raised over 1.5 million dollars!!!

Their new target is 10 million dollars and Sam has quit acting until the goal has been reached. I think he possibly almost gave Connie a heart attack with that announcement!  🙂

I feel a little proud as after a facebook post by Sam that had a few rude words (ok – it was more than a few! lol) and then Connie posting to do the correct sisterly thing and tell him off for his language, I made a comment saying that swear jars should be his new branch of fund raising! This made them laugh a lot – but the next thing I knew – They were off and running with it!

Every bit helps when it comes to cancer research – not many of us are unaffected by it these days.

Although now I have my swear jar in the house I may have to give up playing Soda Crush as I don’t think I can afford that kind of moolah! 😀 😀

I sold another pair of ‘cozy cuffs’ but my stock is rather low as I have been busy over summer with other things. Now that its getting cooler I need to get click-clacking!!

These special crocheted cuffs are made by my friend, Nozomi’s mother. They are absolutely gorgeous and waaaaaay beyond my skill level.  Every now and again I sell a pair for her.

Sadly no-one bought a photo-card today! 🙁 Never mind! I got a lot of really lovely compliments so my ego was boosted, if not my wallet. 😀

Overall it was worth getting out of bed, as I came home $189.50 richer! So I am pretty pleased with that. Not to mention we all had a great day out.

Of course, no market is complete without dropping in on Ruby for a late lunch/afternoon tea!

Well – its time for me to be off and make a start on tomorrow mornings sleep in!!

I hope all your weekends have been fabulous!

Cheers

Hello!

Today was more of an organisational day (tomorrow is the day to collect our niece from the airport) so I didn’t make it into the garden!

I did sit and do some more cards in between the few domestic chores and going out to deliver 3 dozen eggs (which takes AGES when its Ruby, Margie & Shirley, because you just HAVE to stop for a chat. I reckon Jeff thought I was lost)

Anyway – When doing little crafty things, you often get lots of scraps that are annoying to pick up – In the case of the cards its all the backings off the double sided tape.

One of the useful things I picked up in Japan was making a small temporary paper bin – from newspaper or junk mail.

My Japanese friends mainly used these in the kitchen where all the food scraps could go into them – and then straight into the compost if you are using newspaper.

I tried to get a series of photos to show you how they are done.

I want to show you how to fold the pretty seed packets soon too, but will get my niece to help video that as the folds are slightly tricky and I think difficult to convey via still images.

I haven’t tried to explain this via photos before so let me know if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and I will move on to video!

So – grab a sheet of newspaper

Fold in half (see red line 🙂 )

Fold in corners to middle

Fold one layer of paper up to meet the triangles

and fold the same layer up again to cover the bottom of the triangles

Turn the whole thing over

Fold each side to meet in middle

Fold bottom up to meet the ‘not so triangles’ like you did on the other side

And fold up a second time to match the other side

Open the ‘almost’ box

Squish bottom down to make a flat underside (This is where a video would come in handy, but just fiddle with it! It works out pretty easily!)

Ta daa!

A ready made recycled scrap bin. I find them pretty handy.

A busy couple of weeks coming up, so stay tuned for some new stuff when the girls arrive!

Cheers & Goodnight

I think of “Correct Weight” and I immediately think of horse racing – thanks to my Dad who likes a little flutter on the neddies every now and again!

But in this case, we have a zucchini that weighed in at 4.199kgs!

So congratulations Audrey, who put in a guess that was a teeny tiny one gram out of a perfect guess – 4.200!!! Fabulous! Thank-you to those that had a go.

I will find my ‘quirky memento’ to send off! 🙂

Cheers!

A couple of jars of orange peel had been sitting on my kitchen window ledge for a bit too long, and I was down to the last bit of laundry liquid, so thought it would be a good idea to restock on my cleaning products

The citrus cleaner I use is a ridiculously easy process.

So if I am making something that creates a lot of citrus peel, I just bung them in an old coffee jar, cover in vinegar and let them sit and look pretty until I am ready to strain them out –

Then I store the liquid in a clean coffee jar until I need to top up my spray bottle.  I use it as an all purpose cleaner – it smells nice and I don’t have to worry about odd chemicals when I am using it in the kitchen.

Vinegar is pretty cheap – you don’t need to use an expensive type, so the whole thing is fairly easy on the wallet (Esp since most surface spray cleaners are around the $5 mark)

Laundry Liquid

I am sure a lot of you who follow homesteading/frugal living blogs are aware of people who make their own laundry liquids or powders, or do so yourselves.

Soon after we moved here I was determined to get in touch with my Happy Hippy Self and try to wind back on the spending and chemicals & rah rah rah… I haven’t started tie-dyeing yet, but I am, little by little, moving away from pre-packaged stuff and being a little more self sufficient.

With just a tiny little bit more effort, you can save a bundle.

This is how I make my laundry liquid. The basic ingredients have lasted an eon. In fact – today I used the last of the Lux flakes, from the first box I bought over 4 years ago!!

I have had to replace the washing soda and borax once each.

I did a costing on it ages ago and worked out it was costing me less than $2 to make 10 litres!! A high end laundry liquid here can cost $10/litre. Dunno about any one else, but I am way keen to be spending that spare $98 on something more exciting than laundry liquid!

You need a bucket that has a bit over a 10 litre capacity & a bunch of bottles – preferably with handles.

1 cup Lux (soap) flakes

1/2 cup Lectric Soda (Washing soda)

1/2 cup Borax

Half grated bar Velvet soap (or a pure washing soap)

10 litres water

Optional oil for making it smell pretty (I love using Eucalyptus oil)

Put all your dry ingredients into a pot, along with a litre of the water and bring to boil

Let all ingredients melt and boil well (it will boil over if you don’t keep and eye on it!)

Pour into bucket and add the remaining 9 litres of water – keep stirring it up

Add your oil of choice

Pour into your bottles, leaving a good amount of ‘shake space’ as the mixture will separate after sitting for a while.

It works fine (I occasionally use normal stain remover – we do live on red dirt after all…) Just add a 1/4 cup to your wash. Its half an hour out of my life well spent. 🙂

Enjoy what’s left of your weekends!

Cheers